PHANTOM ASSISTANTS?Tung Chung-yan allegedly misused a stipend to pay assistants to pay a credit card bill of NT$115,000 and to settle a NT$20,000 debt

Taipei Times
Date: , Mar 03, 2016
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥) has been accused of fraud and forgery after he was alleged to have misappropriated NT$135,000 (US$4,045) from his stipend quota by exaggerating the number of assistants he employed.

Tung and his wife were released without bail by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office early yesterday morning following a lengthy questioning session.

Prosecutors and investigators on Tuesday took in 32 people — including Tung, his wife and his former and present assistants — for questioning after raiding Tung’s office and confiscating his assistants’ documents for investigation.

Prosecutors said that Tung was accused of having exaggerated the number of staff he employed from January 2011 to August 2014 to appropriate funds from the NT$240,000 monthly quota granted to Taipei city councilors to hire assistants, adding that Tung ostensibly hired more than 20 assistants during this period.

The regulations governing salaries paid out by Taipei city councilors to their aides stipulate that each assistant should be paid no less than NT$20,000 and no more than NT$80,000 every month.     [FULL  STORY]